one two three one two three
by Pandastacia
Summary: They're falling out of each other's universe.


**Title:** Heartbeat Echos [one two three]  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno  
><strong>Notes:<strong> I was watching some DwtS videos because Janel Parrish and Val and started thinking about dancing as a form of expression and I watched lots of DwtS videos of Janel and lots of videos of Meryl Davis because I know jackshit about dancing and want to learn and I'm sorry if I totally done fucked up dancing, you can have my soul as an apology, but idk why you'd want it, and -  
><strong>Summary:<strong> They're falling out of each other's universe.

* * *

><p>The studio is dimmest around the edge, making the audience a mass of dense shadows. Spotlights descend on him and it brings to mind a fairy circle. A contiguous white mushroom ring, several full moons, a forest full of watchful eyes…<p>

It is a night for magic.

He is kneeling on the bench and, while imagination has never been his strong suit, Sasuke's mind raises the visual to its surface. It comes easy when he looks at the woman resting in his arms, studying the loose braids hiding in hair the color of the upper atmosphere at sunrise, slipping around her near-translucent neck.

Her skin is soft under his cupped palms and, as the music starts, he runs his hands toward her chin and pushes the underside of her jaw with his thumbs.

Like the melody, her face is fierce. He is her Oberon and she his Titania, engaged in warfare. They are fairy royalty and they own the world under the moon and they want, they desire, they lust, and they claim and -

He is a pole she uses for leverage to pull herself to her knees and, with hands on his bare shoulders, she lowers her leg to the ground and spins off in a nebula of silver skirt. He watches one of the lights disengage from the rest and follow her onto the shadowy floor as he stands.

But then she returns and they're in each other's arms. A hand is draped across his shoulder, wrist curling into his collarbone, and his hands are at home just above her waist and holding hers. His nose traces the apple of her cheek. She dances like her feet are strung from heaven, seamless like wonder, and he can smell the citrus notes of her perfume.

Their Viennese waltz takes them around their stage's periphery, illuminating the audience in sections for split seconds. Really, though, they do not need the light. Tightly furled in their pernicious and mercurial war, they shine all on their own; the chemistry between their hips sizzles and they have photoluminescence.

In short, it is the kind of last dance that professionals only dream about.

And after they win tonight - because there is no way they _can_ lose to the dobe and his pixie girl - they will end like a dream, all at once. He will prepare for his new partner and she will go across the world to train for one more gold medal with some man who isn't him, who knows how to move into and through and land triple axels with her. Her hours of rehearsal and laughing will be enjoyed by someone else.

That's not it, though. His arm is over her shoulder and she hangs onto him, back pressed against his chest. The fact that she belongs to the ice, an arena he is helpless in, does not bother him as much as the fact he doesn't know when he'll see her again. It's simply easier to be angrier at a person than the miles waiting to lie in-between them and their unfaltering dedication to their arts.

As the music surrenders to its end, they are in sync but no longer touch. Titania and Oberon tease and tempt - seduction, after all, is the space between desire and action - and it is hard to tell, as always, who is losing faster.

Their eyes never leave one another, so he cannot help noticing hers are wider than usual like an awareness. Just as they practiced, she reaches for him right, clasping his hands between them, before they half fly apart. He sees the starry night and he seeks her out, reaching back.

And she grabs his neck when they come together again and he can suddenly breathe _her_ in the ebbing silence like he never has before, can see the break in her armor as their desperate battle ends just as capriciously as it began - her eyes flutter shut and he can see the individual lashes as she smiles.

Their kiss is dead on arrival, a ghost floating between them.

* * *

><p><strong>End Notes:<strong> I tried a different sort of... style thing here, so general opinions on how it works/doesn't work for you would be appreciated. Outside of typo things, I'm not really looking for solutions. Just... how it worked.


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